ion to the supreme power--Cambridge in
1644-5, under the Chancellorship of the Earl of Manchester (III.
92-6), and Oxford in 1647-8, under the Chancellorship of the Earl of
Pembroke (IV. 51-52). The Earl of Manchester, who had been living in
complete retirement from public affairs since the establishment of
the Commonwealth, still retained the nominal dignity of the Cambridge
Chancellorship; but Cromwell had already for five years been
Chancellor of the University of Oxford himself, having been elected
to the office in January 1650-1, after the Earl of Pembroke's death.
His interest in University matters had been naturally sustained by
this official connexion with Oxford, and had shown itself in various
ways before his Protectorate; but his Protectorate added fresh powers
to those of his mere Chancellorship for Oxford, and brought his
native University of Cambridge also within his grasp. He availed
himself of his powers largely and punctually in the affairs of both,
and was applauded in both as the steady defender of their honours and
privileges.--To rectify what might still be amiss in them, or too
much after the mere Presbyterian standard of Puritanism, he had
appointed, by ordinance of September 2, 1654, (Vol. IV. p. 565), a
new body of Visitors for each, to inquire into abuses, determine
disputes, &c. The result was that the two Universities were now in
better and quieter working order than they had been since the first
stormy interruption of their old routine by the Civil War. Each
reckoned a number of really able and efficient men among its heads of
colleges, and in its staff of professors and tutors. In Oxford there
was Dr. John Owen, head of Christ Church, and all but permanently
Vice-Chancellor of the University, with Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Dr. John
Wilkins, Dr. Robert Harris, Dr. Thankful Owen, Dr. John Conant, Dr.
Jonathan Goddard, and others, as heads of other Colleges, and Dr.
Henry Wilkinson, Dr. Lewis Du Moulin, Dr. Pocock, and the
mathematicians Dr. Seth Ward and Dr. John Wallis among the
Professors. Cambridge boasted of such men as Dr. Ralph Cudworth, Dr.
Benjamin Whichcote, Dr. John Worthington, Dr. John Lightfoot, Dr.
Lazarus Seaman, Dr. John Arrowsmith, Dr. Anthony Tuckney, Dr. Henry
More, and others now less remembered. And under the discipline and
teaching of such chiefs there was growing up in both Universities a
generation of young men as well grounded in all the older sorts of
learning as any gener